Kerry, John (Forbes) 1943-

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KERRY, John (Forbes) 1943-

PERSONAL:

Born December 11, 1943, in Denver, CO, United States; son of Richard John (member of the U.S. Foreign Service) and Rosemary (Forbes) Kerry; married Julia Thorne (divorced, 1988); married Teresa Heinz (a philanthropist), May 25, 1995; children: (first marriage) Alexandra, Vanessa; (stepchildren from second marriage) John, Andre, Christopher. Education: Yale University, B.A., 1966; Boston College, J.D., 1976. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Boston, MA. Office—U.S. Senate, 304 Russell Senate Building, Washington, DC, 20510-0001. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Admitted to the bar of the state of Massachusetts, 1976; assistant district attorney, Middlesex County, MA, 1976-79; Kerry & Sragow (law firm), partner, Boston, MA, 1979-82; lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Boston, 1982-84; U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, 1984—, member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs; Democratic nominee for president of the United States, 2004. National coordinator for Vietnam Veterans against the War, 1969-71. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1966-69, served in Vietnam; became lieutenant; received three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster.

MEMBER:

Vietnam Veterans of America (cofounder), Vietnam Veterans against the War, Skull & Bones.

WRITINGS:

(Contributor) The New Soldier, edited by David Thorne and George Butler, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1971.

The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America's Security, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America, Viking (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president of the United States, has published several books that publicize his stance on a number of political issues. From The New Soldier in 1971 to A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America, released in conjunction with his presidential campaign, Kerry's books concentrate on the topics he has most concerned himself with as a member of congress, most notably foreign affairs, national security, and veterans' rights.

Kerry was born in Denver, Colorado, but because his father was a member of the foreign service he spent much of his youth abroad. Despite his international upbringing, he admired John F. Kennedy, was interested in American politics, and volunteered to serve in Vietnam after graduation from Yale University in 1966, an unusual move for the son of wealthy parents. During his three-year tour of duty, he was awarded numerous medals and attained the rank of lieutenant. When he returned to the United States, however, his feelings about America's involvement in Vietnam changed due to the atrocities he had experienced firsthand. He co-founded Vietnam Veterans of America and also became active in the group Vietnam Veterans against the War in an effort to bring the injustices of war to light. Toward this end, he participated in antiwar demonstrations and testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where his statement "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" encapsulated the country's growing discontent with the policies of the Nixon administration. More than thirty years later, Kerry's antiwar activities and his actions as a gunboat officer on the Mekong Delta became central issues in his campaign for president, illustrating the country's lingering ambivalence over the war.

Upon discharge from the navy, Kerry attended law school and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1976. He served as the assistant district attorney in Massachusetts' Middlesex county before opening a private practice. He was defeated in his first campaign for U.S. Representative from Massachusetts in 1972 but was elected the state's lieutenant governor in 1982. He ran for the U.S. Senate and won in 1984, and has served in congress ever since.

The New Soldier, published in 1971, contains the transcript of Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a member of Vietnam Veterans against the War. The book is primarily a photo document of the group's march on Washington in April of 1971, during which some veterans tossed their war medals on the steps of the Capitol. A minor volume when it came out, The New Soldier quickly disappeared and was resurrected only after Kerry began his campaign for president. At that time, the obscure book fetched top dollar online, with copies routinely selling for hundreds of dollars. Reviewing the book in the Weekly Standard thirty-three years after it was first published, David Skinner wrote, "TheNew Soldier is definitely a period piece. A dark photo of six soldiers planting an American flag, which is flying upside down, adorns the cover. The protesters camped out on the Mall that week … and it shows. One can almost smell body odor coming off the page. The VVAW guys are hairy men, many with 'Easy Rider' mustaches. They appear ironic in their uniforms, toting toy machine guns. As they sit on the grass and eat in the open air, their faces grow dirty for lack of facilities."

Kerry's next book, The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America's Security, was published in 1997 and presents ideas formed during his years as the chair of the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. Though Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups don't yet appear on his radar, Kerry acknowledges the threat posed by the five groups he feels are most dangerous to America's well-being: the Italian Mafia, the Russian mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese triads, and the Colombian drug cartels. He shines a spotlight on the far-ranging effects of their crimes, which include money laundering, trafficking in human body parts, and terrorism, and advocates for a stronger system of global law enforcement to curtail them. Because of the complicated networks of international banks, governments, and businesses these organizations utilize in carrying out their crimes, Kerry argues, individual governments cannot effectively prosecute them. It is these groups and their corruption that will dominate the coming decades, and dealing with them requires new ways of thinking and acting globally, he maintains.

Like The New Soldier before it, The New War initially attracted little critical attention. Those who did review the book found it persuasive. Mary Carroll, writing in Booklist, said that "civil libertarians will resist, but Kerry makes a disturbing case for his position." A writer for Kirkus Reviews called it a "richly anecdotal book" that "at its best … is a bold call to arms that Americans should not miss." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly was most drawn in by the author's early warnings about terrorists gaining access to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons for use inside American borders, and called Kerry's ideas "informative [and] thought-provoking."

The book came under closer scrutiny during Kerry's presidential campaign. Michael Crowley of the New Republic called it "a wide-ranging, often pedantic tour of impending global catastrophe (complete with grandiose literary references to Yeats, Thoreau, and Shelley." Though some pundits considered Kerry prescient in his forecast of the new dangers of the post-cold-war era, others criticized him for not recognizing the dangers posed by figures such as Osama bin Laden, who was well known to the government at the time the book was written. As Crowley wrote, "If the future Kerry predicted really had arrived, we'd currently be locked in a vicious cyberwar with CD-pirating Japanese yakuza, Chinese kidney-traders, and Italian mobsters—not hunting Islamic fundamentalists potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction." Though Crowley conceded that Kerry can hardly be faulted for not foreseeing what nobody else foresaw either—the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—he did write that "the ways in which The New War missed the mark are nevertheless revealing. They show the extent to which Kerry was influenced by the criminal investigations of his early Senate career, his preference for viewing post-cold-war security more as a matter for law enforcement than the military, and his tendency to describe problems ad nauseum without offering a clear and bold course of action." In Kerry's favor, Crowley concluded, "he astutely realized that any 'new war' would likely be waged by nonstate actors unconstrained by international borders."

In the more upbeat A Call to Service, Kerry outlined what his economic policies would be if he were to win the presidential election. Among other things, he would help insure job security by providing incentives for companies to keep jobs in the United States, rather than outsourcing them overseas. At the same time, he would foster a climate of capitalism in the Middle East in order to stabilize the region. Reviewing the book in the Scotsman, Fraser Nelson wrote that these policies present a "contradiction": "Looking outward in foreign policy, but looking inward economically, stopping American wealth spreading overseas, except in the Middle East." Nelson concluded that Kerry's wide-ranging policies to address many of the country's social ills "presumes that decades-old problems, such as lack of economic freedom in the Middle East and truancy, can be addressed by the wave of a White House wand."

A reviewer for Publishers Weekly acknowledged that the book does little to shine a spotlight on John Kerry as a person, but it successfully conveys the candidate's anger over Bush administration policies he feels are detrimental toward the troops fighting in Iraq. Kerry also spends considerable time discussing energy and environmental policies of the Bush administration, both of which Kerry feels have influenced decisions pertaining to Iraq. Harry Charles, reviewing the book in Library Journal, concentrated on Kerry's plan to overhaul policies regarding international crime, most notably advocating prosecution of foreign nationals in the United States if they have planned their attacks within U.S. borders but carried them out overseas. On the other hand, Kerry wants crimes committed against Americans abroad to fall under U.S. jurisdiction. Charles found Kerry's plan "well intentioned," but "short on specifics." Reviewing A Call to Service in the New York Times Book Review, Christopher Hitchens wrote that when it comes to style, the book "has no music at all," but that Kerry's solidarity with Senator John McCain on issues pertaining to Vietnam provides "one of the few human notes in his otherwise abysmal campaign book." Nelson noted that many of Kerry's proposals for dealing with other nations do not differ substantially from those of his opponent, George W. Bush, "but if it is idealism that will decide the election, the Democrats have found their man."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Alexander, Paul, The Candidate: Behind John Kerry's Remarkable Run for the White House, Riverhead Books, 2004.

Kranish, Michael, Brian C. Mooney, and Nina J. Easton, John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best, PublicAffairs, 2004.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1997, Mary Carroll, review of The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America's Security, p. 1628.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 1997, review of The New War.

Library Journal, May 15, 1997, Harry Charles, review of The New War, p. 87.

New Republic, February 9, 2004, Michael Crowley, "The Book on Kerry's Worldview."

New York Times, August 15, 2004, Christopher Hitchens, "A War Hero and an Antiwar Hero."

Publishers Weekly, April 21, 1997, review of The New War, p. 53; October 13, 2003, review of A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America, p. 66.

Scotsman, July 30, 2004, Fraser Nelson, "Idealism Runs Deep in Call to Service."

Weekly Standard, February 16, 2004, David Skinner, "A Look at the Senator's 1971 Antiwar Opus, The New Soldier."